This template is used on 11,000+ pages, so changes to it will be widely noticed. Please test any changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Please consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

This ഫലകം employs intricate features of template syntax.

You are encouraged to familiarise yourself with its setup and parser functions before editing the template. If your edit causes unexpected problems, please undo it quickly, as this template may appear on a large number of pages.
You can conduct experiments, and should test all major changes, in either this template's sandbox, the general template sandbox, or your user space before changing anything here.

This template has been designed for the presentation of information on non-stellar astronomical bodies: planets (including extrasolar planets), dwarf planets, moons and minor planets. Some parameters will not be applicable to individual types; these may be omitted without any problems to the template's function.

This template expects that the <references /> tag will be present in articles setting the minorplanet parameter to yes. Pages without a <references /> tag will show Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page for a group named "note", but the references will not show without a <ref group="note"> tag; see Help:Cite errors. at the bottom of the page.

The proper orbital element "Proper orbital period" (in Julian years and days) is calculated within the template from proper mean motion and so does not require a parameter.

For bodies orbiting bodies other than the Sun, include the parameter |apsis= (appropriate suffix). This will replace various parameters' default "-helion" suffix to the suffix set by the |apsis= parameter. For example, setting |apsis= astron converts the labels "perihelion", "aphelion" and "Argument of perihelion" into "periastron", "apastron" and "Argument of periastron" respectively.

Most of these entries should be measured in SI units. Some of them, however, should have more "human-accessible" units, in addition to SI units: several such cases are indicated with a second unit name in brackets. In the case of times (orbital periods, rotation), it is best to give all periods in days for comparison purposes, and provide a translation (in parentheses) into years, days, hours, etc.; whatever is most appropriate for the duration being described.

This template is very flexible. Moons with no atmosphere whatsoever could skip the atmospheric composition section entirely, for example (though atmospheric density would still be listed). Moons also wouldn't have their orbital radii listed in AU, since AUs are such large units. For planets, use "perihelion" and "aphelion" instead of "periapsis" and "apoapsis."

In the case of "number of moons" and "is a moon of", only one of these rows will be used by any given object. There aren't any moons with moons (yet), though perhaps "co-orbital with" might be a useful row to add in a few cases.

On orbital characteristics: The orbital circumference should be computed from the semi-major axis using Ramanujan's approximation for ellipses. The ratio of that circumference to the period then gives the average orbital speed. The minimum and maximum speeds follow from Kepler's laws: vmax=2πa21−e2Ta(1−e){\displaystyle v_{max}=2\pi a^{2}{\frac {\sqrt {1-e^{2}}}{Ta(1-e)}}} and vmin=2πa21−e2Ta(1+e){\displaystyle v_{min}=2\pi a^{2}{\frac {\sqrt {1-e^{2}}}{Ta(1+e)}}}. Note that, by convention, all orbital parameters are given in the primocentric reference system (heliocentric for the planets).

On physical characteristics: The surface area and volume of non-spherical objects (e.g. moonlets, asteroids) must use the proper ellipsoid formulae, because even slight departures from sphericity will make a large difference, particularly for the area.

On the subject of obliquity:Obliquity is the angle between the object's axis of rotation and the normal to the plane of its orbit. Do not confuse this with the Tilt listed in the JPL pages, which is a measure of the angle between the local Laplace plane and the primary's equatorial plane. In fact, most inner moons have synchronous rotations, so their obliquities will be, by definition, zero. Outer moons simply have not been seen from close up enough to determine their true obliquities (although Phoebe, recently seen by the Cassini probe, is an exception; see Talk:Phoebe (moon) for the derivation of its obliquity).

Where G = 6.6742×10−11 m3s−2kg−1 is the Gravitational constant, M is the mass of the body, and r its radius. This value is very approximate, as most minor planets are far from spherical.

For irregularly shaped bodies, the surface gravity will differ appreciably with location. However, at the outermost point/s, where the distance to the centre of mass is the greatest, the surface gravity is still given by a simple formula, a slightly modified version of the above that uses the largest radius rmax{\displaystyle r_{\rm {max}}}

On a rotating body, the apparent weight experienced by an object on the surface is reduced by the centrifugal force, when one is away from the poles. The centrifugal acceleration experienced at the equator is

where T is the rotation period in seconds, and req{\displaystyle r_{\rm {eq}}} is the equatorial radius (usually also the maximum radius used above). The negative sign indicates that it acts in the opposite direction to the gravitational acceleration g.

The HTML mark up produced by this template includes an hCard microformat, which makes the place-name and location parsable by computers, either acting automatically to catalogue article across Wikipedia, or via a browser tool operated by a person, to (for example) add the subject to an address book. For more information about the use of microformats on Wikipedia, please see the microformat project.